page_title: Musical notation
section_title: Byzantine Empire
hierarchical_section_title: Musical notation / History / Byzantine Empire
caption_attribution_description: English: Book of Hymns at the Lord's Resurrection (Romanian: "Anastasimatar bisericesc"), page #11, translated from Greek and printed in Romanian with Cyrillic characters by Macarie the Hieromonk in 1823 in Vienna. It depicts the Byzantine music notation style. Transliteration from Cyrillic to modern Romanian alphabet: ÎNCEPUTUL cu DUMNEZEU CEL SFÂNT al glasului întâiu Glas a. [...] pa Doamne strigatam către Tine / Auzi mă / auzimă Doamne / Doamne strigatam către Tine / auzimă / Ia aminte glasul rugăciunii mele / când strig către Tine / auzimă Doamne. Translation: BEGINNING with THE HOLY GOD first tone tone 1 [...] pa Lord, I have called You / Hear me / hear me Lord / Lord I have called You / hear me / Look towards the voice of my prayer / when I call You / hear me Lord.
context_page_description: Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation for durations of absence of sound such as rests.
  Types and methods of notation have varied between cultures and throughout history, and much information about ancient music notation is fragmentary. Even in the same time period, such as in the 2010s, different styles of music and different cultures use different music notation methods; for example, for professional classical music performers, sheet music using staves and noteheads is the most common way of notating music, but for professional country music session musicians, the Nashville Number System is the main method.
  The symbols used include ancient symbols and modern symbols made upon any media such as symbols cut into stone, made in clay tablets, made using a pen on papyrus or parchment or manuscript paper; printed using a printing press, a computer printer or other printing or modern copying technology.
context_section_description: Byzantine music once included music for court ceremonies, but has only survived as vocal church music within various Orthodox traditions of monodic (monophonic) chant written down in Byzantine round notation (see Macarie's anastasimatarion with the Greek text translated into Romanian and transliterated into Cyrillic script). 
  Since the 6th century Greek theoretical categories (melos, genos, harmonia, systema) played a key role to understand and transmit Byzantine music, especially the tradition of Damascus had a strong impact on the pre-Islamic Near East comparable to the impact coming from Persian music. The earliest evidence are papyrus fragments of Greek tropologia. These fragments just present the hymn text following a modal signature or key (like “ΠΛ Α” for “echos plagios protos” or “Β” for “echos devteros”).
  Unlike Western notation Byzantine neumes used since the 10th century were always related to modal steps (same modal degree, one degree lower, two degrees higher etc.) in relation to such a clef or modal key (modal signatures). Originally this key or the incipit of a common melody was enough to indicate a certain melodic model given within the echos. Next to ekphonetic notation, only used in lectionaries to indicate formulas used during scriptural lessons, melodic notation developed not earlier than between the 9th and the 10th century, when a theta (θ), oxeia (/) or diple (//) were written under a certain syllable of the text, whenever a longer melisma was expected. This primitive form was called “theta” or “diple notation”.
  Today, one can study the evolution of this notation within Greek monastic chant books like those of the sticherarion and the heirmologion (Chartres notation was rather used on Mount Athos and Constantinople, Coislin notation within the Patriarchates of Jerusalem and Alexandria), while there was another gestic notation originally used for the asmatikon (choir book) and kontakarion (book of the soloist or monophonaris) of the Constantinopolitan cathedral rite. The earliest books which have survived, are “kondakars” in Slavonic translation which already show an own notation system known as Kondakarian notation. Like the Greek alphabet notational signs are ordered left to right (though the direction could be adapted like in certain Syriac manuscripts). The question of rhythm was entirely based on cheironomia (the interpretation of so-called great signs which derived from different chant books). These great signs (μεγάλα σῃμάδια) indicated well-known melodical phrases given by gestures of the choirleaders of the cathedral rite. They existed once as part of an oral tradition, developed Kondakarian notation and became during the 13th century integrated into Byzantine round notation as a kind of universal notation system.
  Today the main difference between Western and Eastern neumes is that Eastern notation symbols are differential rather than absolute, i.e. they indicate pitch steps (rising, falling or at the same step), and the musicians know to deduce correctly, from the score and the note they are singing presently, which correct interval is meant.  These step symbols themselves, or better "phonic neumes", resemble brush strokes and are colloquially called gántzoi ("hooks") in Modern Greek.
  Notes as pitch classes or modal keys (usually memorised by modal signatures) are represented in written form only between these neumes (in manuscripts usually written in red ink). In modern notation they simply serve as an optional reminder and modal and tempo directions have been added, if necessary. In Papadic notation medial signatures usually meant a temporary change into another echos.
  The so-called "great signs" were once related to cheironomic signs; according to modern interpretations they are understood as embellishments and microtonal attractions (pitch changes smaller than a semitone), both essential in Byzantine chant.
  Since Chrysanthos of Madytos there are seven standard note names used for "solfège" (parallagē) pá, vú, gʰá, dʰē, ké, zō, nē, while the older practice still used the four enechemata
caption: Byzantine music notation in the first edition (1823) of Macarie Ieromonahul's anastasimatarion, a hymnal with daily chant (including resurrection troparia called apolytikia anastasima) in oktoechos order, each section began with the evening psalm 140 (here section of echos protos with Romanian transliterated in Cyrillic script)
exif: {}